Saturday, June 13, 2009

PTSD in the News: Weekly Roundup

Back in the News saddle after a week of trauma conference coverage and other bumpy life things.

This afternoon I hosted a BTR show: ‘Bridging the Gap Between PTSD and The People Who Love Us’ — fabulous interview with my mom and Deb Vaughan, two people who have gone to great lengths to support survivors in recovery. For tips about how to facilitate communication and proactive healing, listen to the archived show here.

AIG Balks at Claims from US Airways Jet Ditched in the Hudson River - Ms. Sosa said Sophia “remembers everything. I just want her to walk away from this knowing that we did everything we could to make it make sense.” A.I.G. agents have told her that for therapy she should use her own health insurance, but it has a $3,000 deductible for mental health care.

EMDR Helps Jewish Family and Children’s Services - ‘EMDR doesn’t erase the memory,’ says Barbra Quade, director of child and adolescent traumatic stress services at JFCS. ‘What it does is help people deal with their trauma so that it isn’t so troubling to think about.’

Childbirth Can Trigger PTSD - When you think of post-traumatic stress disorder, chances are you think of soldiers returning from Iraq or victims of sexual abuse. However, few people realize it can also be triggered by a long, complicated childbirth. Now, moms and medical experts want to spread the word.

Lifespan Integration Therapy - “Lifespan Integration is a new therapy that facilitates rapid healing in adults who suffered abuse and/or neglect while growing up. LI connects a current problem to a past memory and uses imagery to re-visit that past memory and resolve what happened.” Familton says. “One of the best aspects about LI is that clients do not have to talk about or sit in the difficult memories or emotions of past trauma.”

Emotional Freedom Technique: Forgive, Release, Let Go, Move On! - Although Rich had a difficult time believing that these rather strange procedures would work for him, he was open to giving them a try. After practicing EFT for 15 minutes, his height phobia went away. Then, after applying EFT to a few of his intense war memories, in about one hour they were neutralized.

Heroes & Healthcare - Reggie took her kids and moved to Oklahoma City in September of 2002. Because of the OKC bombing in 1995, Reggie believed doctors there knew enough to treat her children who were also suffering, along with their mom, from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Black Women Bear the Burden of Domestic Violence - Poor health ratings are far greater among African American battered women than for non-Hispanic white women or that of the general female population; post traumatic stress disorder is considerably higher.

Why Army Suicides Continued to Rise in May, And What We Can Do - The news gets more and more troubling when it comes to Army suicides, which continue on a record pace, according to the latest report. March and April saw 13 suicides each. May saw 17 suicides. The Army is taking the issue much more seriously, trying to stop the trend.

Battlefield Accupuncture - It was recently announced that the U.S. Air Force will begin training physicians being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in battlefield acupuncture.

U.S. Military Uses Alternative Medicine - The U.S. military is known for using super secret codes to identify sensitive projects. The key word here is sensitive. Who would have thought that the US military has a softer side? Project code name: iRest, short for Integrative Restoration, a code name for yoga nidra.

Education Key To PTSD Related Issues - ”Ignorance always feeds the fear of mental health injuries, and if you empower the people with the knowledge, it will definitely work in your favour to reduce the stigma,” Doucette said Wednesday.

Awareness is Key As Soldiers Return Home - Of the 1.5 million soldiers deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, an estimated 5 to 10 percent have mild traumatic brain injury, and up to 60 percent of those also have post-traumatic stress disorder.

Homeless Vets Does Not = PTSD - Combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), has been found not to have a direct relationship with homelessness. Further, it has also been found that homeless combat veterans were no more likely to be diagnosed with PTSD than combat veterans who were not homeless.

Pentagon Investigate Pill-Popping PTSD Prevention - The Pentagon’s advanced research arm is hoping that a combination of neuroscience, psychology, and creative pill-popping can stop battlefield stress before it even starts. Darpa is hosting a one-day information session to solicit proposals for “Enabling Stress Resistance” among troops. They’re hoping to harness advances in molecular biology (the science of cell-to-cell interaction) and neuroscience that would short-circuit the brain’s stress response.

Understanding Post-Traumatic Stress - As well as PTSD being far less common than many believe, the former lieutenant colonel, who served in the Balkans and Rwanda during his 25-year Army career, emphasised that sufferers could nearly always be returned to full health: “The worse the traumatic event, the greater the possibility of troublesome symptoms but the overwhelming majority of PTSD cases respond well to treatment,” he said. “It is simply not the case that it is incurable.”

4 comments:

Thanks for all the links. I always learn something new from the weekly roundups.

As a further note about Childbirth PTSD, I just wanted to mention that it could be an extremely fast birth which also creates lasting damage.

Whenever a woman does not receive the quality of labor support which she needs and feels out of control, she can come out of the birth experience with lasting physical and mental scars.

To tie this into the female police officer study, one of the VERY FEW cases I ever read about in which a woman was taken seriously when she claimed damages caused by the abuse of a doctor during her labor was a female police officer.

The article about female police officers and military focuses on different socialization to eliminate PTSD, but in the case of birth . . . I think it's ridiculous to prep pregnant moms with fear and violence and stoic acceptance instead of CHANGING the circumstances of the trauma . . . namely the highly medicalized birth, the badly supported birth, or the just plain abusive births.

We already know that highly medical procedures (surgeries) often leave the patient with PTSD. What most people DON'T know is that a healthy, normal birth doesn't have to be a medical event.

Anyways, I'll step off the birth soapbox now, and let this program resume. ^__^

@LadyLeslie - Thanks for your so insightful comment. It's like being in class with a dynamic teacher pulling together and synthesizing info!

Your point about birth and medical events is really well made. I'm still learning about post-partum PTSD. Until recently I didn't even know it exists -- and yet, it makes perfect sense. As does your point about prepping against PTSD -- perfect for police, not so perfect for expectant moms! I do wish all births were not, as you say, medical events.

Looking forward to adding your voice to POTM in a more spotlighted way. Your guest post finally goes live next Tuesday.... :)

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I am a trauma survivor who struggled with undaignosed, chronic/extreme PTSD for 25 years. And then I was diagnosed and went on a healing rampage! Today, I'm 100% PTSD-free.
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I am not a medical, psychiatric or other trained professional. I am only a survivor telling her story. The posts contained on this blog are solely for the purpose of 1) providing resource information about PTSD and healing, 2) suggesting self rediscovery and empowerment techniques to aid the healing process. Your own healing journey should also incorporate the advice, help and guidance of professionals appropriately trained to work with your specific type of trauma and PTSD symptoms.